note 58157 rejected from function.session-start by jome

Note Submitter: jlh at gmx dot ch ---- I've not yet found out how to do the following: When a suitable session for the user exists, then it shall be loaded. If no session exists, then *no session shall be created*. session_start() will create a new session if none exists, so the only solution is to call this function conditionally. But how to check whether a suitable session exists on the server? I could check for the presence of a cookie with the SID, but that doesn't imply that the session really exists on the server. session_id() doesn't return anything useful as long as session_start() hasn't been called, so it's of no use. Anyone got a clue? Of course, I can find other alternatives for my real life code; they are a little bit suboptimal, but still more than acceptable. I'm asking this out of curiosity, because I want to know if there's a clean way to do it.